Boston Radio Studios

[Donna Halper]

At 08:49 AM 6/1/2010, revdoug1@myfairpoint.net wrote:
>Tell us about WNAC and WCOP.  I'm curious.   I remember the WNAC 
>building.  (What's there now?)

My husband and I took photos a couple of years ago of what used to be 
the WNAC studios at 21 Brookline Ave-- the building was abandoned, 
sad to say, and left to just sit there unoccupied.  Next door, 
however, is the Buckminster Hotel, where WNAC moved in 1930-31 (the 
move occurred in two stages).  If I'm not mistaken, the Buckminster 
spent some time as a part of Grahm Junior College before being 
returned to its former role as a hotel.  The Buckminster had a 
wonderful ballroom, and WNAC used to hold live broadcasts with famous 
bandleaders.  The Brookline Ave location was a big deal in the early 
40s-- in 1942, it was expanded to house what was then expected to be 
the next big thing-- FM.  The new and state of the art studios, with 
room for WNAC AM, the new FM operation, and the Yankee Network, was 
written up in many newspapers.  Of course, WNAC got its start in the 
Shepard Department Store's Boston location on Winter Place, in late 
July 1922.  (I have a scanned photo of the outside of the WNAC/Yankee 
studios on Brookline Ave, from 1946, if anyone wants me to send them a copy.)

WCOP almost didn't get on the air-- its original owner died of a hear 
attack, if I remember my old notes about events in 1935.  It was 
originally supposed to have the call letters WMFH.  And of course 
went on the air from the Copley Plaza, in late August 1935.  In those 
days, it was at 1120 on the dial and was a daytimer only until late 
1941.  It underwent a number of ownership changes in only a short 
time, and when it was purchased by Cowles Broadcasting in October 
1944, there was talk of building a new and improved transmitter in 
Lexington, but the studios remained at the Copley Plaza Hotel and in 
mid June 1945, WCOP officially became part of the former Blue 
Network-- now American Broadcasting Co.  I assume that when WCOP was 
sold to Plough Broadcasting, it moved to the location at 234 
Clarendon, because that's where it is listed in the mid 1950s.